These seem to fit fairly well when dealing with the different ideologies and even though rather simplistic, I see the fit. The first three have been brought forward by other political philosophers. The last, I wanted to touch on myself…

First three…
Socialism/Communism = government(public) owned/government controlled.
Fascism = privately owned/ government controlled
Capitalism = privately owned/ privately controlled

Now we can see the least amount of freedom or free agency would be with the first. To a slightly lesser degree we see the second of these with government allowing you to own things but under their strict supervision and approval. The last of the three goes to a polar opposite almost to the point of anarchy and possibly chaos.

Here’s the fourth:

Government owned/ privately controlled.

Now this may sound like an improbability and even an impossibility to some. Have you ever known of such a societal undertaking? To me this sounds remarkably like the “United Order” or the “Law of Consecration”. When it was successfully administered, those that were able to make this type of system work were translated. I believe the prophet Joseph’s plan for the New Jerusalem or Zion was fashioned after this economically, but to make this type of system work it had to be worked by common consent not just hoped for.

Just a thought.

I was playing golf with a WW II vet and friend. I pointed to some very large houses being constructed near the golf course and said, “Look at those mansions!” He responded, “I am afraid that we are at the peak of a pride cycle.” This comment came from a man who has the benefit of having seen much societal change throughout his lifetime. I then commented, “You know what comes after the peak of a pride cycle, don’t you?” He nodded his head and said, “I am glad I won’t live long enough to find out.”

There is a famous saying attributed to George Santayana. You’ve probably heard it: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (in John Bartlett, comp., Familiar Quotations, 15th ed. [1980], 703). There are, in fact, several different variations of this quote, including “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Regardless of the exact language, the sentiment is profound. There are great lessons to be learned from the past, and you ought to learn them so that you don’t exhaust your spiritual strength repeating past mistakes and bad choices.

You don’t have to be a Latter-day Saint—you don’t even have to be religious—to see the repeating pattern of history in the lives of God’s children as recorded in the Old Testament. Time and again we see the cycle of righteousness followed by wickedness. Similarly, the Book of Mormon records that ancient civilizations of this continent followed exactly the same pattern: righteousness followed by prosperity, followed by material comforts, followed by greed, followed by pride, followed by wickedness and a collapse of morality until the people brought calamities upon themselves sufficient to stir them up to humility, repentance, and change.

In the relatively short span of years covered by the New Testament, the historic pattern repeats itself again. This time the people turned against Christ and His Apostles. The collapse was so great we have come to know it as the Great Apostasy, which led to the centuries of spiritual stagnation and ignorance called the Dark Ages.

Now, I need to be very clear about these historically reoccurring periods of apostasy and spiritual darkness. Our Heavenly Father loves all of His children, and He wants them all to have the blessings of the gospel in their lives. Spiritual light is not lost because God turns His back on His children. Rather, spiritual darkness results when His children turn their collective backs on Him. It is a natural consequence of bad choices made by individuals, communities, countries, and entire civilizations. This has been proven again and again throughout the course of time. One of the great lessons of this historical pattern is that our choices, both individually and collectively, do result in spiritual consequences for ourselves and for our posterity. (Ballard, M. Russell. “Learning the Lessons of the Past“. April 2009. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 17 June 2009.)

Over 26 years ago Hugh W. Nibley pointed out that there were dialectical materialists on both sides of the Iron Curtain. When I first read that statement, I didn’t understand what he meant. At first, I thought he was referring to those socialists and communists at work in the East and the West. However, as I studied his writings it was apparent that he meant that capitalism and socialism/communism are both based on materialism. They both have the all important economy as their end goal.

So in essence, Pravda and Mr. Mishin got it right. America’s former political economy of capitalism has made a long slide towards Marxism because the two are mirror images of each other. Hopefully, more on this later.

An extremely sobering reality, indeed. They say “it takes one to know one”. Well, it takes a former socialist/marxist country to know when another is rising. What really chaps my hide, Greg, is that so many people are oblivious to these changes. So many people, even many in the church, could not care less about this issue. One of our duties as Latter-day Saints is to be aware and on guard for these sorts of developments.

**Our Constitution, laws, and government were established by the Lord** Any messing around with these systems will bring upon us the judgment of God. I have tried to raise a voice of warning by posting an article called “Sieg Heil, Herr Obama”. The post warned against unmitigated socialism and government control creeping into our society. Some members took offense, including the folks at mormon achipelago who removed my site from their list of LDS blogs. They told me Is was not moderate enough. To those people I say, if the gospel-informed truth about socialism hurts, then maybe you should re-assess your values.